1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for presenting data regarding media programs to subscribers, and in particular to a method and apparatus for navigating media program information based on a daypart paradigm.
2. Description of the Related Art
Program guides for television programming are known in the art. A common method for obtaining television programming information is by consulting paper television programming guides or schedules. This method of disseminating information, however, has limitations. A paper guide may become obsolete or a schedule may change, rendering the paper copy useless. Additionally, the paper schedule may easily be lost.
Electronic program guides have been used to alleviate some of the limitations of paper. One example is a cable system that provides a continuous feed of guide information to a dedicated television channel. The channel displays continuous program listings. The continuous nature of the link allows the guide to be updated and reflect current scheduling information. An alternate method of providing guide content is to send it, along with program content, through satellite transmissions to receiving stations.
Typically, electronic program guides are based around the use of a scheduling grid. This grid typically involves one axis that corresponds to time and another axis that corresponds to transmission channels. At the intersection of each channel and time slot is a “cell” which typically displays the title of the program that is being shown on that channel at that time.
The number of media programs available to the consumer has been increasing dramatically. As a result, on screen guide information density is increasing exponentially as well. Due largely to resolution limitations, conventional scheduling grids are ill suited to present the increased number of available media programs to the user in a meaningful way. For example, as a general rule, any information provided in a program guide should be legible when presented on a 19 inch NTSC television with 250 scan lines of resolution at a distance of 15 feet. This substantially limits the amount of information that can be presented at one time. Such limitations are especially problematic for scheduling grids, because the grids present information the viewer is not interested in (channels time slots that are not of interest), and not enough information about what the viewer is interested in (more detailed information about future broadcasts on the current channel or other channels).
Current grid guides, especially those that incorporate a PIG or “picture in guide” suffer as channel capacity and therefore information density increases. Reduced screen real estate brought on by the video window results in limited viewable time line (1.5 hrs ahead is typical), limited channel display area, limited space for program descriptions, limited overall legibility and cumbersome navigation. All of these factors negatively impact the real world usefulness of a grid guide.
When taken on whole, a “snap shot” of the most sophisticated grid guide exhibits a remarkable lack of useful information. In many cases, program titles in the grid are reduced to single words making them unidentifiable unless highlighted. System latencies slow the highlighting process. Program descriptions are displayed one at a time. Incorporating advertising, whether in the grid or blocked along side will impact the information capacity even further.
Also, if a user wishes to determine what programs will be available on a particular channel two hours in the future, the user must typically scroll through a number of screens to obtain this information. Then, after the user has done so, the information presented by the scheduling grid is minimal at best, and shared with other programs that are not of interest (i.e. those broadcast on other channels).
One way of overcoming the space limitations is to reduce guide fonts. However, this increases visual clutter and decreases legibility. Cumbersome and complex graphic “animations” must be employed to display second level information in the limited screen real estate. Current attempts to overcome these limitations try to cram ever more complex information display metaphors into less space with the result being more equaling less.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,575, issued to Schein et al. on Jun. 13, 2000, for example, shows a typical grid-based program guide. While the program guide permits the user to view a wide range of information, it still suffers the same limitations as the grid guides of old in that it presents information that the user is not interested in and does not present information that the user is likely to be interested in. The resulting waste of display real estate requires the user to pass through a maze of complicated commands with far more user inputs than is really necessary.
What is needed is a user interface that displays information in a way that presents information the user is interested in, and which does not waste screen space presenting information of no interest. What is also needed is a new information and navigation paradigm that streamlines the accessing, manipulating, and sorting of guide data related to broadcast, stored and streamed video and interactive service offerings.
The present invention satisfies that need.